Venice: I am not making this up

Tourists take a load off

June 9, 2018 8 Comments

I realize that Venice can be fatiguing — most people aren’t used to walking all day. But the dog has twice as many feet as the man, and it’s still standing.

Sometimes people ask me when the “tourist season” or “high season” begins, and I used to be uncertain. Uncertain no more: It’s Easter. Easter is like the starting bell at Churchill Downs — they just start coming. I can’t explain it, but it has never failed; even if Easter were to fall on February 3, November 5, January 22 — that would be the start of tourist season. But that’s not what’s weighing on me.

What’s weighing on me is how so many of our honored guests have come to behave as if they were in their own backyard, or garage, or abandoned lot behind a shuttered White Tower Hamburgers. Extreme bad manners, of which we’ve already had a few starter episodes, get into the newspaper. For example, the drunken Swiss boys cavorting naked in Campo San Giacometto at the Rialto — profoundly repulsive but not DANGEROUS — or the drunken boys (unspecified nationality) who jumped off the Rialto Bridge one night — HUGELY dangerous.

Or the perhaps not even drunken young men who still were jumping off the bridge by the Danieli hotel in full daylight, blithely unconcerned about barges and taxis and gondolas below. The jumpers could easily be injured when hitting the water or, more precisely, hitting something that’s on the water (recall the drunken New Zealander a few hot summer night years ago who jumped off the Rialto and landed on a passing taxi; after six months of agony, he finally died). Anyone in a boat passing under a bridge has to start thinking they’re in some shooting gallery where, instead of bullets, there are bodies coming for them. The prospect of six months of inescapable and increasingly repellent tomfoolery makes me feel tired and dejected.

We know about these shenanigans because people make videos on their phones and post them on social media. That’s the bass line in this chaotic cantata — showing the imbecility by doing something equally imbecilic. Everyone who reads these reports wonders why people are making videos instead of calling the Carabinieri. If you know the answer to this, please step up to accept your award. Right after you call the Carabinieri. But witnesses to the Danieli escapade say that the police were indeed called, and the police indeed did not appear. So there’s that.

In any case, one doesn’t need dramatic episodes to feel repulsed by tourists, and the daily deterioration doesn’t merit much of a story in the paper. Any neighborhood is bound to offer all sorts of examples of boorish behavior. Among various options, my current obsession is the evidently irresistible urge so many people have to just sit anywhere, plop down on the pavement or bridge, when the mood strikes. I realize this is not unique to Venice, because I’ve seen young people sitting on the floor in the airport, as if there were no seats anywhere. I’m not saying we should bring back the corset and the high starched collar, but the other extreme is worse. Why? For one thing, because they’re in the way and public space is already measured in microns. Second, because it makes otherwise normal people, who almost certainly have had some upbringing, appear to want to revert to life as Homo habilis once they get to Venice.

“Consider yourself at home, consider yourself one of the family” is not a Venetian song.

Tourists waiting for the vaporetto at San Pietro di Castello. It must be terrible to have your strength give out before you can make it the last few steps onto the dock, where there are benches to sit on.

He may be many things, all of them wonderful, but he is not a child. Does he do this where he lives? Or is this some special feature of vacation in a foreign country where nobody knows you?

Maybe the force of gravity is just stronger in Venice, pulling people down against their will. (Gazzettino, uncredited photo)

Tired AND hungry? Just buy a box of take-out pasta (the newest trend) and picnic wherever the spirit moves you. The city is yours! Sit as near a corner as you can manage, so people can risk falling over you!

Takeout food is cheap and filling and maybe even tasty. But while the city is attempting to control the number of places which sell pizza by the slice, kebabs, and boxes of pasta, it has gone inexplicably silent on the question of where the food is to be taken away to. Evidently anywhere is fair game. Take-out places are going to be required to have bathrooms, but not a thought is spared for seating. Which means that in this case I have to sympathize with the feeders. If you give people no option, they’re going to fend for themselves. This is what self-fending looks like. (Gazzettino June 7, 2018 uncredited)

Or why not sit down by a sign that says “Please respect Venice”? Better than sitting on the pavement? Yes, sort of.

Speaking of benches, this one at the San Stae stop was inscribed in marker-pen to indicate the appropriate placement of people according to their category. All the descriptions were sharp and rude, and one was dedicated to tourists.

It says “Reserved for the tourists del cazzo.” This isn’t easy to translate; “cazzo” literally means “penis,” and is often used to modify a word to its trashiest, cheapest, lowest-grade level. Yes, writing this is also trashy and low-grade, but one recognizes the sentiment even against one’s will. The notion that Venetians hate tourists isn’t quite right: They hate anybody who acts like a slob, and many of those come from somewhere else.

So much for the subject of quality (lack of). In my next post, some observations on quantity (surplus of). There will be interesting statistics.

Uncategorized

Mini-Memorial Day

May 31, 2018 3 Comments

Memorial Day is now disappearing in the traffic behind us (though my calendar notes that yesterday, May 30, was the traditional date for the same), but what are dates? As a wise person once remarked, for Gold Star families every day is Memorial Day.

In any case, many nations commemorate their fallen with masses of marble, eternal flames, and other worthy symbols of pride and humility. Italy has the “Altare della Patria,” or Altar of the Fatherland, in Rome.

Imposing. Serious. Solemn. (Photograph by alvesgaspar, wikimedia).

And then there is a schlumpy little chunk of some kind of stone that was sitting in a tangle of green-and-brownery at Sant’ Elena. This last bit of Venice before the Adriatic Sea isn’t known for monuments, unlike the rest of the most-beautiful-city-in-the-world up the street. But in fact the whole neighborhood is a sort of memorial to World War I, its streets named for generals, battlefields, dates and exploits. And there is also this cube on which two words were long since incised: MILITE IGNOTO (MEE-lee-teh Ih-NYAW-to). Unknown soldier.

Lino came across this relic a few months ago, and was startled and more than a little offended. Not that he makes a cult of military cenotaphs, but he stated clearly that he saw no point in having such a significant object if it was just going to lie there, neglected and forgotten. He said this also to a few other people too, especially to some of the officers at the nearby Scuola Navale Militare Francesco Morosini, where he teaches Venetian rowing.

“Unprepossessing” is putting it mildly. Till you think about it, and then you realize that this fragment is the exact equal of the mountain of metamorphosed limestone in Rome.

Most comments float away like dandelion fluff (if you’re lucky), but Lino’s particular comment stuck somewhere because a cultural association devoted to World War I entitled the Associazione Cime e Trincee (Peaks and Trenches) got to work, and last Sunday the newly furbished memorial was rededicated in the sight of God and a small but trusty company of assorted veterans.

This ceremony wasn’t matched with any particular date — they could have waited till Saturday and combined emotions with the national holiday commemorating the founding of the Italian Republic. But they did it on Sunday, and we went. We felt mystically involved, even though we still haven’t found out how the notion of bringing the stone back to life, so to speak, ever occurred. It’s enough that it happened.

The Gathering of the Participants from various components of the armed forces with their standards. The participants outnumbered the spectators, but the fact that there WERE spectators is a fine thing.

When it comes to the bersaglieri (“marksmen,” or rapid light infantry) I’m not sure which is more dazzling — the fuchsia standard, or the cap cascading with turkey feathers. I’ll take both.

Last to arrive were three cadets from the naval school, bringing the Italian flag. They were accompanied by a very energetic ex-member of the Alpine Regiment who appeared to be acting as a sort of stage manager.

We move a few steps back to stand along the border of the circular plot where the stone is placed.

The two little girls pulled off the orange cloth to reveal the stone, which has now been placed up on a sort of pedestal and isn’t lying around in the dirt anymore.

Don Gianni Medeot, the chaplain of the naval school and a naval officer, blesses the stone.

Being blessed. The traditional laurel wreath has very untraditionally been laid — albeit reverently — on its side. The ribbons are supposed to be vertical. But let me not spoil the moment.

As soon as the modest speechifying concluded, a youngish member of the Alpine regiment (not pictured, and not the stage manager) walked right up and straightened the wreath. I felt so much better. The picture of the three cadets also looks better this way.

The standards were then packed up in their carrying cases, and the everyone proceeded to the refreshment phase — here as simple as the ceremony: red wine and potato chips.

You don’t need a marching band or fireworks.

Events

Hands up (and down)

May 8, 2018 1 Comment

Almost exactly a year ago, a huge pair of hands was installed in the Grand Canal in such a way as to appear to be pushing against Ca’ Sagredo, once a magnificent palazzo and now a magnificent hotel. They were evidently one of those bits of visual badinage so beloved of the Biennale, which was about to open. I seem to recall they got lots of notice.

But badinage is effective only when it’s fleeting. You can’t have the same old badinage every day, it would be like living in “Groundhog Day.” And yet that’s exactly what we had for a year, to the point where one long since ceased to laugh, smile, or even notice it.

On May 12, 2017, the hands were raised.

On May 8, 2018, the jig — or the contract, or the parking meter — was up, and down they came. And now I discover it wasn’t supposed to be humorous at all.

What goes up must come down, even if it means drilling and sawing all day. Some people, including the artist, are hoping they’ll come back, whenever they can find another place to prop up.

As reported by “La Nuova Venezia,” Lorenzo Quinn, the artist has said that “They’re my son Anthony’s hands, and they’re as important as the message they give.” There was a message?

Of course there was a message! I was totally mistaken to regard this construction as humorous. Because the message is a serious one (no points for saying “Desperate need for renovation of old buildings”). The message of the hands was to draw attention to the problem of “the constantly increasing global warming. We have to save the world” — that’s the message of the hands, and if you didn’t know that before, now you do.

Actually, I think I liked them more as badinage.

Venetian-ness

Unpacking more memories

May 5, 2018 3 Comments

Lino’s memories come in all shapes and sizes, though unpacking them is generally less cumbersome than dealing with appliances.

As you know by now, what looks to me like a random person on the vaporetto/street/high seas often carries a cargo of memories for Lino. I get to hear them all, not in any order whatsoever. He seems to review the person’s biography from his mind horizontally.

A few mornings ago we got some seats on the #1 going up the Grand Canal. So far, so surprisingly pleasant. “You see that man over there?” Lino asks.

“The one with the hat?” He was pretty unremarkable, sitting by himself. No hint that he could ever have bubbled like submerged lava with ill-will toward his fellow man. Toward the fellow man sitting right beside me.

The year was sometime between 1965 and the Seventies, and the rio delle Torreselle — the canal behind the Guggenheim Collection — was still home to eleven gondolas. (Now there are two.) Naturally, where there are gondolas, there are gondoliers; Lino, who lived on a very near side-street, would hear them talking in the evening as they came home after work, putting the boats away for the night. The canal was also where Lino kept his little wooden topetta, invisible in this view but up at the end of the row of boats on the left. Idyllic. I’m joking. The story involves gondoliers.

The rio delle Torreselle in a tranquil moment some time in the Seventies; in the Sixties the gondolas were moored in pairs to the fondamenta on the right, and there were no boats on the left side. (mapio.net)

The man on the vaporetto (nickname beginning with “T”) was one of those gondoliers, and tied up his gondola just opposite Lino’s little boat. One day T was seized with the conviction that Lino’s boat was presenting a clear and present danger to the health and well-being of his gondola. Or potential danger. The fact that both were the nearest to the 90-degree curve of the canal might have fomented this notion. But Lino’s boat was about half the size of his, so I suppose if anyone were to be annoyed by its neighbors, it ought to have been the topetta. In any case, NOTHING HAD EVER HAPPENED.

“So he made a formal complaint,” Lino told me. “One day these papers arrive, I have to go to court. He’s claiming one million lire in damage to his boat. I said ‘I don’t even know what a million lire are.’ (Note: It would have been $618 in today’s money, but back then it was way more than a month’s salary.) My lawyer friend saw me looking glum and I told him about all this, and he said ‘Give me all the papers, I’ll take care of it.'”

So a few days later the court sent a surveyor to measure the combatants (the boats, I mean, not the men). “The surveyor is working away,” Lino went on, “and I was saying to T, ‘They’re just boats made of wood! Don’t you have any bigger problems than this? You’ve got your old mother at home to look after…’ And the surveyor is listening as he’s writing his notes. And he turns to me and says, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.'”

The case was dismissed, and T had to pay the costs. “Then my lawyer friend said, ‘Now we’re going to go ahead and sue for moral damages.’ And I said ‘No, for the love of God, just let it go.'”

That would be enough to remember, but there’s more in the album. “He had a sister, she was unbelievably beautiful. I had such a crush on her when I was 15, I would just tremble when I saw her. I’d stand beneath her window hoping to get a glimpse of her. I never said a word to her, ever… His father was a gondolier too. A big strong man (‘grande, grosso…’). Finished third in the Regata Storica, or maybe it was fourth, I can’t remember the year. I’ve got some papers about it at home somewhere.”

So everyone lived happily ever after? I guess so, in their Venetian way. Lino went on with his life, and when T retired he took his precious gondola someplace and sawed it up into pieces. “He could have sold it, but he had all the money he needed anyway, he owned houses, he wasn’t married. But no, he just went and cut it all up. That’s a normal person?”

« Previous 1 … 41 42 43 44 45 … 180 Next »